Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The only promise I will make is to work night and day and do everything I can to improve our public services and make insurance affordable for more people. The Deputy mentioned specifically the issue of consultants. One thing I have achieved in office is an agreement on pay scales for new consultants. Over 30 new posts have already been advertised. I am in the same boat as the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, the senior officials in our Department, the HSE leadership team and everyone else working in the health service. We are doing our very best to deliver as good a health service as we can with very constrained resources and very limited time. Expenditure is some €1.5 billion less than seven years ago, and there are 15,000 fewer staff. Therefore, we are really struggling but we are doing everything we can to provide as good a service as we can.

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